BP Canada plans to drill up to seven exploratory wells off the southeast coast of Nova Scotia that are at least 3.5 times the distance from land and up to twice the depth of the well beneath the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig.

The Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 after the Macondo well, located 1.5 kilometres below surface, blew out — resulting in the deaths of 11 men and the largest marine oil spill in history.*

The company’s proposed solution if a catastrophic blowout happens in Canadian waters relies on shipping a capping device from Norway, a process that is estimated to take between 12 to 19 days — but it could take between 13 and 25 days total to actually cap the well with the device.

In the meantime, two critical fisheries and countless marine species would be seriously endangered. The Sable Island National Park Reserve is less than 50 kilometres away.

“When you’re drilling that deep, you better know exactly what you’re doing,” said Gretchen Fitzgerald, Atlantic director for the Sierra Club Canada Foundation, in an interview with DeSmog Canada. “With the poor regulations and industry oversight that we perceive out there, we’re not reassured that’s happening. They’re very far from emergency and spill response.”

BP Canada declined multiple requests to be interviewed for this article.

Scotian shelf currently a ‘remarkably productive area’

The company’s four leases cover 1,398,180 hectares — about a quarter the size of Nova Scotia. Almost all of the leased area falls within an “Offshore Ecologically and Biologically Significant Area.”

It’s the specific location that is of concern to many.

The 700 kilometre Scotian Shelf, which effectively divides the Continental Shelf and the deeper Atlantic Ocean, serves as the site of remarkable biodiversity, including whales, seals, sea turtles, fish, corals and birds. That contributes to highly successful fisheries such as the nearby Georges Bank.

“The edge of the Scotian Shelf is a remarkably productive area and important for a lot of animals,” Hal Whitehead, professor of biology at Dalhousie University, told DeSmog Canada.

“It’s that the drilling is actually on and near the shelf that worries me most.”

“This is the kind of thing that terrifies us.” https://t.co/JPOyWt7y1o

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) January 15, 2018

BP proposes use of booms and dispersants after blowout

One proposed solution that BP mentioned in its environmental impact statement is using “booming and skimming operations” which help to physically contain oil within a particular area.

Fitzgerald called such a proposal “kind of laughable” given the incredibly large waves, sometimes as high as 10 metres during storms, that can occur off the coast.

In a 2010 interview with New Orleans’ Times-Picayune following the Deepwater Horizon spill, civil engineering professor Robert Bea said a boom’s rate of effectiveness in choppy saltwater is around 10 per cent: “In open turbulent water, you can’t catch the oil,” he said.

Then there’s the use of chemical dispersants, which break apart oil into smaller droplets and allow it to more easily mix with water. Almost seven million litres of a dispersant called Corexit was used following the Deepwater Horizon spill.

In the years since, a plethora of research has been published suggesting that the impacts of dispersants are far from harmless — and is actually toxic to coral and many microorganisms, including plankton. A recently published study by the National Institutes of Health also linked human exposure to Corexit with symptoms including coughing, wheezing and chest tightness.

“The efforts by the oil industry to convince our regulators that dispersant is a good idea are highly suspect,” said John Davis, director of the Clean Ocean Action Committee, in an interview with DeSmog Canada.

“Given the fact that it’s in major dispute from the scientific community, you should use the precautionary principle and not use the stuff until you understand its real impact.”

Shell drillboat dropped two kilometres of pipe during rough weather

Critics point to yet another major reason for concern — this time, a lot closer to home.

In 2016, a Shell Canada ship encountered harsh weather off the coast of Nova Scotia while attempting to drill an exploratory well. Two kilometres of pipe were lost, landing a mere 12 metres from the wellhead.

“If they had hit their own wellhead and if they had been at an oil-bearing site in terms of their drilling activity, they would have had a major disaster,” Davis told DeSmog Canada. “Nothing more than the luck of the draw allowed them to escape that. Nothing to do with their technical capabilities, nothing to do with their safety mechanisms: just plain luck.”

“This is the kind of thing that terrifies us,” Davis said.

Davis has a personal connection to the region: he’s been a fisher for almost half a century and his organization currently represents about 9,000 people involved in the fishery on the Scotian Shelf and nearby Georges Bank.

He said that a worst-case scenario — losing control of the wellhead during the middle of the winter with high northeasterly winds — would push oil and dispersant into the very successful fishing grounds within a week or two thanks to the strong, consistent Labrador Current.

He said that his group was very open to working with the oil and gas industry in the early stages of the process. But after encountering little success with regulators or industry to improve spill mitigation, they now oppose any oil and gas development in the region.

“We are working carefully to protect the sustainable resources that we have and to use them in a sustainable fashion,” he said. “We can demand that the oil and gas industry, if they’re going to try to function on the Scotian Shelf, have the same high level of regulatory process that we work under. That’s not the case.”

Offshore drilling produces drilling fluids, plastics, noise

Even if a catastrophic blowout doesn’t happen, the oil and gas activity from the exploratory wells may still have significant impacts on marine species that reside on the highly biodiverse Scotian Shelf.

Whitehead of Dalhousie University said that offshore oil and gas operations can produce toxic drilling fluids and plastics that are blown or dumped overboard, potentially having hazardous impacts on local whale populations.

The industry’s “very, very noisy methods” of drilling also impede the vital ability of whales and dolphins to sense and communicate.

“It can deafen them at the worst, drive them away from areas which are important to them and affect their ability to use natural sounds for things like avoiding predators and finding mates and social relationships,” he said.

BP plans to begin drilling by mid-2018, following approvals

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency released its draft environmental assessment report on November 22.

A month-long window followed allowing for public comment on the draft. Following the finalization of the report, it will be submitted to Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna who will then provide BP Canada will an environmental assessment decision statement with a series of conditions.

Notably, the draft environmental assessment report included a recommended condition that in the case of a blowout, BP Canada should “begin the immediate mobilization of at least one capping stack and associated equipment to the project area to stop the spill,” seemingly endorsing the company’s plan.

BP Canada has indicated that it seeks to start drilling its first exploratory well in mid-2018. Each well takes 120 days to complete. It has committed to spending $1 billion in the exploratory process.

Environmental critics appear to be pessimistic about the situation, especially given the decisive role that the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board — which some describe as a captured regulator — plays in the approval and regulatory process. Fitzgerald added that now is not the time to approving new offshore processes given the deaths of 16 critically endangered North Atlantic right whales in 2017.

“It’s one thing to say that we’re going to be improving our environmental regulation in Canada and tackle climate change and protect the right whales,” she said.

“But if you’re not going to deal with some of these issues in the offshore, you’re not going to see much progress in those areas. The stakes are high. It could have huge implications if there was a disaster out there.”

*Correction made Feb. 2, 2018, at 9 p.m. The article originally incorrectly stated the depth of the Macondo well.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The federal agency investigating the Lac-Megantic oil train derailment and explosion that killed forty-seven people released recommendations last week to improve the safety of shipping crude oil by rail. If the recommendations are implemented by the federal government they will serve as a strong step forward in protecting communities living along railway lines. 

“The federal transport minister has a clear choice: protect public safety or secure profits of oil companies,” says Keith Stewart, a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada.

One of the country’s most active lobby groups – the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) – responded to the recommendations earlier this week. CAPP asked the federal government “to ensure their implementation does not interrupt service and respects the competitiveness of transporting our products by rail.” In other words, new regulations should not interfere with business as usual for the oil industry.

“Companies have to pay the price for safety. Their profits cannot come before communities, the environment and general safety,” John Bennett, director of the Sierra Club Canada told DeSmog Canada.

The Transport Safety Board (TSB) made three recommendations to Transport Canada improve safety of oil-by-rail shipments: tougher standards for the susceptible-to-rupturing DOT 111 tank cars, strategic routing of oil trains that considers the environment and communities, and emergency response plans for rail lines transporting large volumes of oil.

Greenpeace and the Sierra Club welcome the recommendations. Both organizations have been pushing for stricter oil by rail transport rules since before disaster struck Lac-Megantic, Quebec on July 6th of last year. Rail company CN also supports the TSB’s recommendations. Rail tank cars are owned either by shipping companies or oil producers. Rail companies on the other hand own the rails, and are liable for derailments.

The recommendations focus on tank cars, not the rails themselves, which is one of the shortcomings of the recommendations. Improvements on both are needed.

Recommendations cannot protect the public if they are not implemented. Bennett is not very optimistic the recommendations will be applied by the federal government. Many TSB recommendations in the past, he says, have “just sat there” and were not adopted, like rail line improvement recommendations made after the Lake Wabamun derailment in Alberta in 2005.

Stewart speculates the federal government will wait to see what the U.S. does, something he thinks is very problematic.

“Lives are at risk. Canada should be taking a leadership role,” Stewart told DeSmog from Toronto.

The TSB and the U.S. National Transport Safety Board announced their safety recommendations for oil-by-rail intentionally at the same time. Transport Canada has ninety days to reply to the TSB’s findings. Upon release of the recommendations in Ottawa on January 23rd, TSB chair Wendy Tadros insisted “change must come and it must come now."

If adopted, applying the recommendations may prove to be difficult. Rerouting oil tank cars away from densely populated or environmentally sensitive areas is difficult due to Canada's limited rail options.

Emergency response plans also require greater communication between shippers in the public, especially regarding large oil shipments. Shippers have been reluctant to do this in the past.

“Canadians need to ask themselves why are we doing this? Transporting oil more – whether by rail or pipeline – is a risk with little to no benefits for communities because it is going for export,” says Bennett, who is based in Ottawa.

“We already have enough infrastructure to meet our own oil consumption needs,” Bennett told DeSmog Canada.

Oil tank car shipments in Canada have dramatically jumped from five hundred carloads in 2009 to 160,000 last year, but Canada’s consumption of oil has declined during the same period. All of the recent pipeline proposals in Canada are destined to export oil out of the country with the exception of the Line 9 pipeline in Ontario and Quebec.

“The federal government would be more than happy for this debate to be rail versus pipeline oil shipments,” says Stewart.

“The debate should really be between dirty energy and clean energy and why we continue to invest billions in infrastructure for the fossil fuel industry when that money should be used to fight climate change and reduce our dependence on oil,” Stewart told DeSmog Canada.

The oilsands boom in Alberta and the Bakken shale oil boom in North Dakota coupled with stiff opposition to new pipeline approvals have been blamed for the massive increase in oil-by-rail transport in North America. In the US, oil tank carloads went from 10,800 in 2009 to 400,000 in 2013.

Image Credit: Transportation Safety Board

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared it will enhance Canada's “energy security.” The premiers of Alberta and New Brunswick call it a “nation builder.” Even the Toronto Star agrees: “this project appears to be in the national interest.”

Those are just some of the reactions to what sounds like the rebuilding of Canada's transcontinental railway but was in fact the announcement of a proposed oil pipeline from Alberta to Canada's east coast. Last week TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. announced it will seek regulatory approval for its Energy East pipeline project, expected to ship 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil and tar sands bitumen from Hardisty, Alberta to Saint John, New Brunswick, crossing through six provinces on its way.

“Energy East and other tar sands pipeline projects will build a nation dependent on exporting tar sands oil overseas,” says Ben Powless, a tar sands community outreach coordinator for Ecology Ottawa.

“A true nation building project would decrease or eliminate Canada's dependence on fossil fuels,” Powless told DeSmog.  

Energy security for Canadians or securing exports for oil companies?   

The Energy East project involves converting 3,000 kilometres of TransCanada's 'Mainline' natural gas pipeline and constructing another 1,400 kilometres of pipeline mostly from the Quebec-Ontario border to Saint John. Three new oil terminals will be built in Saskatchewan, Quebec City and Saint John to accommodate the pipeline.

The terminals in Quebec City and Saint John will be outfitted with ocean-going tanker loading facilities raising concerns Energy East may turn the St. Lawrence River into a “highway for oil exports.”

“Energy East's oil and bitumen will go to the highest bidder whether it is refineries in eastern Canada or markets in the US, Asia or Europe,” says Andrea Harden-Donhaue, an energy campaigner with the Council of Canadians.

A substantial portion of Energy East's 1.1 million bpd shipments will have to be exported outside of Canada. Eastern Canadian refineries – refineries TransCanada claims it will supply – collectively refine 700,000 bpd. One of these refineries is Irving Oil's refinery in Saint John, the largest refinery in Canada (300,000 bpd). According to a press release from Irving Oil earlier this year “the refinery exports over 80 per cent of its production to the US” as refined products such as gasoline.  

“There is no guarantee oil refined in eastern Canada will be for domestic consumption,” Harden-Donahue told DeSmog.

Eastern Canada cannot refine large quantities of bitumen

TransCanada has not yet said how much bitumen from the Alberta tar sands Energy East will transport. This is another factor in determining how much of Energy East's shipments will be exported since Eastern Canadian refineries are not outfitted to refine large quantities of the heavy unconventional crude oil.

With bitumen production surging and conventional oil sources drying up in Canada it is safe to assume this pipeline will eventually carry more bitumen than conventional oil if the project is approved. Unless eastern Canadian refineries are willing to invest an estimated $2-billion to upgrade their facilities to refine bitumen, the bulk of Energy East's bitumen is likely to be exported.

Shipping bitumen through an old gas pipeline

Shipping bitumen through the TransCanada Mainline, a 55-year old natural gas pipeline, is another cause for concern especially for Canadians living along the pipeline's route. According to a report by the National Petroleum Council for the U.S. Department of Energy in 2011:

“Pipelines operating outside of their design parameters such as those carrying commodities for which they were not initially designed, or high flow pipelines, are at the greatest risk of integrity issues in the future due to the nature of their operation.”

The Kalamazoo spill in Michigan in 2010 and the Mayflower spill in Arkansas earlier this year involved old pipelines designed to transport light crude oil that ruptured while shipping bitumen. Changing the contents of what North America's aging pipelines move may very well be a recipe of disaster.

Opposition to Energy East has already emerged

The same day TransCanada announced Energy East, one of Canada's largest civil society organizations – the Council of Canadians – launched a nation-wide campaign against Energy East, a pipeline the Council of Canadians believes is unsafe, and unlikely to provide energy security or create “decent jobs.”

Later that same day the Assembly of First Nations' Chiefs in New Brunswick announced, although not opposed to Energy East, they "will avail themselves of any means necessary, legal or otherwise" if the pipeline threatens their treaty rights or the environment.

Opposition to Energy East had already sprung up before TransCanada's announcement last week in places such as Ottawa and North Bay, Ontario. Some unorthodox opponents of the pipeline are three gas distributors who claim Energy East will mean less natural gas for the Central and Eastern Canada markets. Gas customers may be forced to pay higher rates if gas distributors have to find new sources.

It may prove to be a fool's errand to attempt to build in the new pipeline in Quebec that Energy East requires to reach the Atlantic coast. Quebec stopped its own fracking industry dead in its tracks because of public outcry. Constructing a pipeline along the St. Lawrence River to facilitate further expansion of the tar sands industry may be a tough sell for environmentally-conscious Quebecers.

Energy East: The Tar Sands Resistance Building Pipeline

“People on Canada’s West Coast have rejected the Northern Gateway pipeline; Americans are rejecting pipelines going south. Why would we in Eastern Canada accept the risks that no one else will?” Gretchen Fitzgerald, director of the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, said in a press release on the day of TransCanada's announcement.

If the campaign against Northern Gateway in BC and the more recent campaign against Enbridge's proposed Line 9 pipeline in Ontario and Quebec are indicators, Canadians tend to become more actively opposed to the development of the tar sands when the industry proposes to operate tar sands pipelines in their provinces. Energy East may face the greatest Canadian opposition to any pipeline to date. No other pipeline under consideration for oil and bitumen shipments involves so many provinces as Energy East does.

“Energy East may build and unite Canadian opposition to the expansion of the tar sands from coast-to-coast,” Powless told DeSmog.

TransCanada intends on applying for approval of the Energy East project in 2014. The company hopes to see the pipeline up and running by 2017.

Images Credit: Vicki Watkins Flickr and TransCanada

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For about a decade, bee populations around the world have been experiencing massive declines for mysterious reasons. The phenomenon, often called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), is characterized by a rapid loss of worker bees and has been linked to a wide range of causes: cell phone frequencies, mites and pesticides. It isn’t until recently that the massive bee deaths have been directly linked to the use of neonicotinoid pesticides.

Neonicotinoids, or neonics, are neuro-active insecticides, chemically related to nicotine. They came into development in the 1980’s and 90’s by Shell Oil Company and then Bayer pharmaceuticals. Neonics are hyper-toxic pesticides that are designed to be water soluble, so they are able to travel and contaminate pollen-dense plant life far and wide. The wide reach and long life of neonics has proven to be deadly to pollinators like bees and birds and detrimental to humans as it has penetrated groundwater systems into drinking water.

Recently, when they found 50,000 dead bees in a department store parking lot, the state of Oregon temporarily banned the use of these pesticides. The bans are in place until the research can show that the chemicals will not threaten bee populations. Likewise, the European Parliament put out a report in 2012 that specifically links the use of neonics to irreversible hive destruction. A moratorium has been placed on these pesticides in the European Union.

Last year 5000 beehives in Ontario were lost suddenly and have not recovered. Yet, when the story came out, the pesticide lobbyist group, CropLife claimed that the problem was nothing more than the usual crop dusting issues. CropLife blames any negative side affects resulting from the distribution of pesticide dust on equipment manufacturers.

However, this spring, farmers in Ontario experienced bee mortalities in unprecedented numbers. These deaths have been researched by scientists worldwide and are undeniably linked to the use of neonicotinoid-coated corn and soy seeds. 

Despite the evidence, bans on neonics are not in place yet in Canada. According to a report by Maria Szabo for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) is calling for further assessment before a ban will be implemented and they claim the process could take years to complete. 

In order to better understand the level of crisis that Ontario beekeepers are experiencing, DeSmog Canada spoke to Tibor Szabo Jr. of Szabo Bee Enterprises. Tibor is a queen producer, the Vice president of the Ontario Beekeepers Association (OBA), third generation beekeeper, and son of Dr. Tibor Szabo, Order of Canada recipient and Apiculturist for Agriculture Canada.

"I've never seen anything like it," Tibor said.

He tells us that he and his father first noticed the bees were being poisoned four years ago when they found that some of their hives had far fewer adult bees than what would be considered healthy. The bees were acting strange and appeared to be sick and disoriented. A full report on his findings is published at honeybees.ca.

“It was confusing,” he said. “We didn’t think that anyone was using any kind of insecticide in this area… there are, however a few corn and soy fields nearby. We had no idea that the bees were dying because of the agricultural fields.”

Last spring, Tibor discovered that hives placed nearby to agricultural fields experienced a 90% mortality rate. “There were piles and piles of dead bees,” he said.

He had heard that other beekeepers in Ontario and the US were experiencing similar things and he was told to send the dead bees to the PMRA for testing. He discovered tests for 80% of Ontario apiaries came back positive for high levels of clothianidin, a Bayer neonicotinoid insecticide, used to coat corn, “one gram of [this] can kill 25 metric tons of bees,” he said.

They then called for water testing, as they were concerned about puddles of water in the fields that they were sure the bees would be attracted to. The PMRA didn’t get around to testing the water last year. However, The Szabos requested water testing again this year and the PMRA did the tests. The results are still coming in, but initial reports show “extremely concerning levels of insecticide are present in field water.”

What worries him even further is that the chemicals stay present in the water and soil and re-contaminate crops for over three years. “There were samples of dandelions taken that had been sprayed a year before. They tested positive for the pesticides the next year, even though these plants hadn’t been treated.”

When the Ontario beekeepers realized the coated seeds were the culprit in the massive bee deaths, the OBA tried to issue best management practices the farmers could follow that would reduce or eliminate the need for insecticides. “They were not adopted by Health Canada,” Tibor tells us. “They have their own best practices management that looks identical to the pesticides industry’s.”

Earlier this month, the Guelph Mercury published a story on the Szabo farm and how they lost 49 of 50 hives this spring. The President of CropLife responded to the article with a letter that claimed the Varroa Mite was responsible for the deaths of the bees, not the neonics.

Szabo says that CropLife is an incredibly effective lobbying group. “They work hard at misinforming or muddying the information flow, so to speak.”  He goes on to say that anyone who kept bees would know that the Varroa Mite has an entirely different epidemiology. And, indeed, if anyone knows about the Varroa Mite, it’s the Szabos. 

Dr. Tibor Szabo is one of the foremost researchers on the Varroa Mite. He had been aware of its presence long before the mite reached the US in the 1980s and Canada in the 1990’s. Years before the mite was present in Canada, Dr. Szabo had already been breeding bees for resistance to the mite.

Ontario farmers are on board with the OBA and are trying to get untreated seed. However, they are finding it extremely difficult to buy any. Coated seed is all anyone can buy, despite studies that show the pesticides may not have any positive effect on the crop yields. “For everyday that goes by without bans, CropLife makes money by forcing farmers to buy coated seed. If they can delay anything, they make money.”  

The PMRA is in no big hurry to ban the pesticides either, Tibor told DeSmog. "They make 20% of their budget from the licensing and registration of these pesticides. That’s around $8 million per year."

Meanwhile, the use of neonics in Canadian agriculture was implemented before the chemicals were sufficiently tested for safety. Now, the PMRA says they need to do extensive testing before they can issue a ban.

Canadians don't want the Neonics. In a recent poll by the Sierra Club Canada, 67% of informed Canadians support the ban of the neonicotinoid pesticides responsible for massive bee mortalities in the United States and Canada. Another 24% said that they were unsure and 10% were against it. Of the 1000 persons polled, 95% of those that supported the ban also supported their provincial government taking action, should the federal government ignore the issue.

Support for the ban is highest in Ontario, where bee colonies were hit the hardest. In Ontario 54 bee keepers were affected and 4000 bee colonies were destroyed after the planting of pesticide-coated seeds were planted in corresponding fields last year.

“People need to know what’s happening,” Tibor says. "The ban on neonics may have come sooner [in Oregon] because it happened in a parking lot, where people could see it. Here, it’s happening in the farm land.”

He reminds us that so much of life depends on pollination. “It’s a key to our Earth and the way that things have a evolved.” He suggests readers sign the petition to Ban Honey Bee Killing Pesticides Now! on The Petition Site or the Save Ontario's Bees petition at Change.org.

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